


Try To Hold Me

by Merrov



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-14
Updated: 2011-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:41:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merrov/pseuds/Merrov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 38 Minutes. In which Jason realizes some things, there’s an argument, and then they have sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try To Hold Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fififolle for our two person Markham/Stackhouse fic exchange. It didn't turn out exactly how I was planning it, but I hope you like it anyway!

Jason Markham had always prided himself on his levelheadedness. Shit happened, Jason stayed calm in its face and did his job, whatever it was at the time. He made friends, and he’d take a bullet for anyone of them, but he was a soldier. Soldiers accepted death when necessary even as they fought to save others. A teammate’s death- or near death in this case- had never affected Jason this much before.

Hours after they got back to Atlantis safe and sound, Jason was still shaking. Yes, he would have died too, but that wasn’t what was bothering him. Nate Stackhouse had almost blinked out of existence right along with him. A hysterical laugh clawed at Jason’s throat but he swallowed it down hard. How ironic that they would have died together before Jason ever realized how he felt about Nate.

The two of them had been on the same team since they had both transferred into the SGC. They’d been _kept_ on the same team because Jason was the only one who could keep Nate in line and Hammond knew it. Jason had never realized what exactly that meant for the two of them, or how close it was bringing them together until just now.

With a groan, Jason ran a hand through his hair and pulled himself together. He stopped pacing the floor of his quarters and stared down at his boots. He hadn’t even made it to the shower yet, he realized. Today was going to be one of _those_ days, he knew. As he’d gotten older, the ADD had become easier to handle, but sometimes- usually when something shook him- he had to resort to mental lists to keep himself on track with even the simplest of things. Shower. Dress. Supper. Bed.

He hoped he wouldn’t run into Nate.

\---

It was too much to ask, of course; Nate unceremoniously dropped down into the chair across the cafeteria table from Jason. “I’ll be glad to put this day behind me,” Stackhouse chuckled as he dug into his supper. He didn’t seem to be affected at all by their near-death experience.

Suddenly not that hungry, Jason picked at his salad. He did not look up at Nate, nor did he speak. The words were all jumbled up in the back of his throat, starting with ‘you almost died’ and ending somewhere between ‘you asshole’ and ‘I love you.’

Nate was still talking, Jason noted, but he couldn’t tell what his friend was saying. By the time Jason realized that the words had stopped and he glanced up, Nate was giving him a strange look. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jason shrugged and pushed his salad away. “Tired,” he replied simply. ‘You almost died and there was nothing I could do about it,’ he wanted to shout. “I’m done in for the night,” he continued as he stood and picked up his tray.

Nate watched him for a moment longer before shrugging and turning back to his meal. “Remember we promised to help the egg-heads out with jumper tests tomorrow,” he reminded Jason in a sing-song voice.

“Yeah,” Jason nodded and quickly made his escape.

\---

The next few days weren’t much better. They’d built their schedules in such a way that Jason had almost no work time away from Nate. Usually, he enjoyed it; Jason considered Nate his best friend, after all. These days it was so infuriating just how unaffected Nate seemed by what had almost happened to them. Jason found himself distracted and grumpy at everyone as time went on. When Jason started noticing the strange looks Nate was giving him, he realized he was probably watching Nate more often than he usually did as well.

“What is with you?” Nate finally asked.

Jason grumbled to himself and rolled his eyes at the water far below them. Of course Nate would ask at an inopportune time. They were sitting out on their friend Damien’s balcony. They’d scored a day off and, as usual, were spending it in the company of their friends. “Nothing’s wrong,” Jason replied quickly as the door opened behind them.

Dr. Damien Sevoir and Major Wes Ferreh joined them a moment later, bringing with them fresh beers. Jason took the honey brown bottle of Australian beer gratefully. “Bullshit.” Unfortunately Nate wasn’t going to let himself be distracted this time. “You’ve been acting weird for a week now, Jason.”

“Stacks’ gotta point there, mate,” Damien pointed out as he leaned a hip against the balcony railing and lit up a handrolled cigarette. “Yeh’ve been off.”

Jason took a long pull from his beer and gave Damien’s smoke a covetous look. Damien got the message and pulled a second cigarette from the tin he kept in his pocket and gave it to Jason. Jason didn’t say anything until after the first rush of smoke hit his lungs. “I’m fine, guys,” Jason said as he exhaled. “Just gotta work through a few things.”

“Is this about being stuck in the front of the jumper?” Wes asked. “You know there was no way you could have known that would happen. There was nothing you could do to help. No one blames you.”

Jason gratefully latched on to the excuse. It was better than the truth. “I _know_ that,” he sighed. “I just don’t know if I believe it.”

After that, Jason found he could just lean back and enjoy his beer and smoke while his friends tried to convince him that it wasn’t his fault. Jason felt a little guilty for misleading them, but what really still had him bothered was ridiculous and there was no way in hell he wanted anyone finding out before he’d figured it out for himself.

Jason stopped after his second beer; he’d learned that he was far too trusting when he wasn’t sober. After his fourth beer, Nate lost track of their conversation and changed the subject, talking Damien into bringing out the liquor. Jason decided to turn in early after that. He really didn’t feel like being the one to help Nate home later like he always did.

\---

In retrospect, he should have known that leaving early was a bad idea. Nate showed up at his door the next morning and shoved past Jason and into the room as soon as the door opened. “Alright, spill,” Nate ordered, turning to fix Jason with a look. “Something’s bothering you, and I don’t think it has much to do with not being able to help get the jumper unstuck.”

“Lay off, man, I just have to work through something,” Jason grumbled. He turned away from Nate and sat at his desk chair to lace up his boots. “It’s good to see you’re bright eyed and bushy tailed,” he continued, “seeing as we have a mission today.”

“You’re avoiding talking about it,” Nate sighed.

Jason looked up and glared at him sharply. “Yes, I am, now just drop it already,” he snapped.

Nate raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and backed toward the door. “Fine, whatever, I’ll see you at the briefing.”

The mission itself went pretty well, Jason had to admit. No one got shot at and the natives were nice and willing to trade and even had a few Ancient looking trinkets that they were willing to let the Damien study while they were there. There was no Wraith activity and they even got back right on schedule. What killed Jason about the whole thing was that now Nate was avoiding him and Damien was shooting Jason curious looks and Sergeant Henderson was the only one that seemed unaffected by the tension. Jason could almost feel the calm before the storm, but he couldn’t think of a way to stop it. Nate wasn’t going to let this go forever, and really Jason knew that he just had to either get the fuck over it or take the plunge and tell Nate what was going on.

Nate showed up at his door again that night. “Jesus, can’t you just leave it alone?” Jason grumbled as soon as he saw who it was.

“No,” Nate shouldered past him and into the room. “I’ve never seen you freaked out by nearly dying, but that’s the only thing I can think of that would maybe have you this bothered. I almost died too, you know. I’m handling it, but you’re all uncomfortable and weird. It would have probably been the best death possible, considering that our other options are angry aliens and Wraith. This way all that would have happened is that we blipped out of existence none the wiser.”

“God damn it, Nate,” Jason wanted to punch him, or maybe slam him up against the wall and kiss him silly. “It’s not me that I’m having the problem with.”

“What?” Nate snapped, rounding on Jason and crowding into his space.

“You!” Jason finally gave up and shouted in his friend’s face. “You could have died and there would have been nothing I could do!”

“Seriously?” Nate asked, incredulous. He opened his mouth to continue, but Jason had had enough.

“Yes, ‘seriously.’ I’ve spent years keeping you sane and safe and I never even realized what it was doing to me.”

“Doing to you?” Nate echoed, bewildered. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that apparently I’ve become attached in what is probably an unhealthy way,” Jason growled, shoving Nate back a little.

Nate stared at him silently for a moment, and Jason could almost see the gears turning in Nate’s head. Nate had this whole thing where he acted like a drunken idiot most of the time, but Jason knew it was totally a defense mechanism. He was ridiculously intuitive and could almost always see right through Jason. “Are you saying that you’ve been freaking out all this time because you realized that we could have died and you hadn’t even realized that your feelings toward me span more than just friendship?”

“Yes! Yes, okay?” Jason felt relieved even as the most closely guarded secret he’d carried since joining the Air Force was revealed, even if it was only Nate who was figuring it out. “This is so fucking stupid but yes and it’s been driving me bat-shit insane.”

In the resulting silence, Nate studied Jason’s face, eyes searching for something Jason couldn’t really figure out. It was oddly disconcerting and he shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Hey,” Nate said quietly, catching Jason at it. “Relax, okay? Just… wow, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jason sighed, looking down at their feet. The toes of their boots were almost touching. Jason absently estimated about four inches between them.

The next thing Jason knew, Nate was laughing; huge belly laughs that spoke of a bone deep relief. Jason looked up at him sharply, but Nate just laughed more and grabbed Jason’s shoulder. “Don’t be mad, Jas, I swear I’m not laughing at you.” Nate finally got himself under control and beamed at Jason. “It’s funny, you know? If we’d been in any other line of work we’d have both known from the start that the other is bent and we’d have probably gotten frisky between the sheets years ago.”

Jason still wanted to be mad, but Nate suddenly seemed hell-bent on tugging him closer and kissing him, and really, Jason was not one to say no to that sort of behavior. If, in his anger, he was a little rougher than Nate, biting at his lower lip and aggressively shoving his tongue into Nate’s mouth, well, Nate certainly wasn’t complaining.

There was a lot of fumbling of course, at least on Jason’s part, and even Nate chuckled awkwardly a few times, because really neither of them had had occasion to do this in _years,_ but soon enough they were naked and on the bed and then Nate was pressing in and in and Jason felt like he couldn’t get a full breath. Nate was the only thing keeping him from floating away, out of the atmosphere to be lost among the stars, but Jason was anchored by Nate inside him and by the stretch, and fuck but it was good. Even if it was a little awkward and there was a false start and they were using lotion for lube and Jason would be feeling it for days. That was fine- perfect, even.

Afterwards, Nate made no move to leave. He cleaned them up gently with Jason’s discarded shirt- which Jason managed to glare at him for but Nate just snickered- and then curled around Jason and pulled the blankets over them. The best part of the whole thing was that Jason knew that nothing was really going to change between them. They already bickered and nagged each other like an old married couple. Nate made sure Jason had smokes and Jason made sure Nate had cherry Tic-Tacs, and Damien and Henderson both were used to their insistence on sharing a tent or room when they were offworld. Not that either of their teammates had any room to throw stones anyway. Damien and Wes had been a couple long before the Atlantis expedition and Henderson… Jason was pretty sure she was in some sort of convoluted three-way between Heightmeyer and a twitchy man in the Anthropology department named Marshal.

Whatever, Jason decided as Nate snuffled in his sleep and buried his nose in Jason’s neck. This had been something that was going to happen sooner or later, and Jason was just glad that they hadn’t gotten killed before it could.


End file.
